Conducting Educational Research
Caroll
Caroll
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
CHAPTER 2<br />
anything about the information from that period. In essence, most testwiseness<br />
skills lie in the ability to recognize faults in question design, helpful patterns, and<br />
well established strategies. Others emphasize the pre-test preparation that must<br />
occur, or skills to overcome reading comprehension, or to alleviate test anxiety. At<br />
the high school level, the question that arises is whether or not students have received<br />
ample amounts of coaching in order to be well versed in the art of testwiseness.<br />
Standardized exams ultimately determine the suitability for seniors in high<br />
school to qualify for post-secondary admission. With their future weighing in their<br />
minds, the stakes certainly could not be higher. Not only do grade twelve standardized<br />
exams determine success or failure for students, undeniably by extension,<br />
they also are perceived to indicate the quality of the instructor. Staffrooms in every<br />
school are often filled with the moans of teachers stressing about their students’ test<br />
performance and, by extension, the image that it will relay on their methodologies.<br />
Testwiseness also forces teachers to tiptoe the precarious line of morals and ethics<br />
while preparing students for exams. As a result, teaching testwiseness to students<br />
may run the risk of spoon feeding information to our students, or simply teaching<br />
to the test. Ultimately, because of high stakes exams teachers feel constricted to<br />
“lock down” the curriculum and feel unable to explore areas of interest that do not<br />
directly apply to the content of the exam. As aforementioned, there are definite<br />
problems that arise from issues that pertain to testcoaching and testwiseness.<br />
The focus of this study then, is to attempt to affect positive academic improvement<br />
upon grade 12 social studies students through providing them with moral and<br />
helpful testwiseness tips. Students must be reminded on a continual basis of the<br />
importance of writing an exam with a critical mind. Often, as classroom teachers,<br />
we mention these skills in passing somewhere at the beginning of the semester. Or<br />
worse, we assume senior high students have already acquired the aforementioned<br />
test taking cleverness. Why not provide students with reminders of these skills on<br />
the day of the exam? Why not revisit these skills without the subject becoming<br />
overburdened or obtrusive upon the students? Through the comparison of student<br />
performance on the exact same exam before the implementation of an “improved<br />
testwiseness workshop” and after it, this study will correlate test writing skills with<br />
achievement.<br />
The purpose of this study is to determine if providing a testwiseness reference<br />
sheet for use during the examination will elicit significant improvement in students’<br />
test scores. If students are refreshed of these test-wise skills immediately before<br />
writing an exam, the hope is that it will better serve them in experiencing future<br />
success. Will the current class of students who have received the testwiseness<br />
intervention perform significantly better than their past counterparts who did not<br />
receive it all?<br />
38